This is not a political blog. As I’ve said in previous posts, I work hard to ensure that this commentary is a-political. I know a lot of other public sector bloggers, particularly those still in direct local government or central government employment, also steer clear of the “P” word. Maybe that’s why, despite columnists, broadcasters [...]

I was very privileged this weekend to be part of the team organising LocalGovCamp Yorkshire & Humber.  I’m not in a hurry to claim too much credit.  A simple idea over twitter and a few drinks, a list of venues a friend sourced for me and a few emails was pretty much my input, with [...]

In education, e-safety is a key topic.  Well, let’s be fair, it’s a fairly key topic anyway, however recent changes to OFSTED’s Handbook for the inspection of further education and skills from September 2009 makes it quite clear that, in education, internet safety is of primary importance and that all learners should be aware of [...]

I don’t like farmville. There, I’ve said it now, I’ve got that off my chest. For those who don’t know, farmville is a Facebook based game with over 80million subscribers worldwide where people create a virtual farm and trade with their “neighbours” (other Facebook friends) to build better farms. Part of my dislike for this [...]

Yesterday I had the absolute pleasure of spending the day with an inspirational group of people at UK GovCamp 2010.  UKGovCamps, for those who missed it, are informal “un-conference” get togethers of people with a passion for public sector technology and/or social media.  This one took place at the, frankly, inspirational offices of Google in [...]

Anyone who’s worked in a local authority will know about posts which are “politically restricted by way of remuneration”.  If you’re wanting to know the finer points of what this means, here’s Darlington Coucil’s guidance on the subject.  However, in short, it means that people in certain roles and above a certain pay grade at [...]

When I posted my last post this morning, I had a great response.  However, it wasn’t just the response I noticed, but the number of others who sent me their blog posts on the subject. So, I’ve put a list here together of all the posts I’ve found on the subject, so that this can [...]

This my first blog post for 2010, but I’m not looking to the future – instead I’m returning to the past. Not too long ago I did a post about how Twitter and other social media being used in emergency situations.  Now, I don’t claim that millions of people in local government read this blog, [...]

There’s a first time for everything and, this weekend, I joined in for the first time with a Barcamp in my home city of Bradford.  A barcamp is an informal meeting of innovation enthusiasts, where anyone can contribute or lead a session. I thought I’d be in for a  strange kind of day, possibly filled [...]

I saw this news story today from Neville Hobson‘s (@jangles) Twitterfeed. I’ll let you do the reading, but, in a nutshell, it’s the report of a study that suggests young people could be damaged, emotionally, by using Twitter.  The reason being that we can process negative stories much faster than positive ones, leaving us with [...]